Chapter 1: The Three-Year Contract

The contract was three years long, eleven pages, and — Elena Marsh reflected, reading it a second time in the back of the car — almost insultingly fair.

Marry Julian Cross on paper. Appear at family events. Live in the east wing of the Cross house, keep her own hours, her own work, her own life. In exchange: the hospital bills that had eaten her savings, her mother's house saved from the bank, and a clean, amicable divorce with a settlement when the term expired.

"You can still walk away," Julian said, without looking up from his tablet. "My grandmother's ultimatum is my problem, not yours."

"Your grandmother's ultimatum," Elena said, "is the only reason a man like you is offering a woman like me a contract instead of a wedding." She uncapped her pen. "I read contracts for a living, Mr. Cross. This one protects me more than it protects you. That is either very careless or very decent, and I have decided to believe it is decent."

She signed.

His eyebrows rose, very slightly — the first unscripted expression she had seen on him. "Most people ask for more money."

"Most people," Elena said, capping the pen, "have not read page nine. The clause about my mother's house is airtight. Whoever your lawyer is, give them a raise."

For a moment, the coldest CEO in the city looked almost — almost — like a man who had been out-negotiated and did not mind.